I'm back from Laureate City and wow! What a dream to read at the beautiful National Arts Centre / Centre national des Arts in Ottawa and to be among so many wonderful poets. All the readings were amazing! And so was the audience. Thank you to Arc Poetry Magazine, VERSeOttawa and l’association des auteures et auteurs de l’Ontario francais, the organizers of Laureate City, for bringing us together in your great city and for making me feel so welcome. Ottawa is awesome.
I wrote a couple of poems to open my reading on Friday night. Here's one:
Sonnet for Laureate City (2)
So. On Monday it snowed and I thought whoa
what am I going to say in Ottawa
that’s worthy of recording? I could go
on about the fireball people saw
burning through the dark over Saskatchewan
last Friday, but that mystery was solved
before this week began. I guess for fun
I could claim, like space junk, I too revolve
around something much larger, simply caught
in an orbit not my own. I could claim
I fell into this fine atmosphere. What
old rocket body wouldn’t do the same?
Poets propel resupply missions then
re-enter. I think. I feel. The friction.
